It really is a puzzle. I've been watching it for a decade now and the trend is no longer deniable. Dubya Cubed, the soi-disant “WorldWideWeb”, is like a small but very peculiar fishbowl, a hermeneutically sealed microcosm where you can watch the advance of civilization running in reverse.

It's a definite phenomenon — it's gone beyond obvious where it's headed — all that remains is to sift the cause.